There is one thing, however, in which I think we must all agree at the
start. It is that this so-called but mis-called Negro problem is one
of the most important and urgent subjects that can now engage public
attention. Its solution is, and ought to be, the serious business of
the best American wisdom and statesmanship. For it involves the honour
or dishonour, the glory or shame, the happiness or misery, of the whole
American people. It not only touches the good name and fame of the
Republic, but its highest moral welfare and its permanent safety. The
evil with which it confronts us is coupled with a peril at once great
and increasing, and one which should be removed, if it can be, without
delay.
EPIDEMIC OF MOB-LAW.
The presence of eight millions of people in any section of this
country, constituting an aggrieved class, smarting under terrible
wrongs, denied the exercise of the commonest rights of humanity,
and regarded by the ruling class of that section as outside of the
government, outside of the law, outside of society, having nothing in
common with the people with whom they live, the sport of mob violence
and murder, is not only a disgrace and a scandal to that particular
section, but a menace to the peace and security of the whole country.
There is, as we all know, a perfect epidemic of mob law and persecution
now prevailing at the South, and the indications of a speedy end are
not hopeful. Great and terrible as have been its ravages in the past,
it now seems to be increasing, not only in the number of its victims,
but in its frantic rage and savage extravagance. Lawless vengeance is
beginning to be visited upon white men as well as black. Our newspapers
are daily disfigured by its ghastly horrors. It is no longer local but
national; no longer confined to the South but has invaded the North.
The contagion is spreading, extending and overleaping geographical
lines and state boundaries, and if permitted to go on, threatens to
destroy all respect for law and order, not only in the South but in all
parts of our common country, North as well as South. For certain it is,
that crime allowed to go unpunished, unresisted and unarrested, will
breed crime. When the poison of anarchy is once in the air, like the
pestilence that walketh in darkness, the winds of heaven will take it
up and favour its diffusion. Though it may strike down the weak to-day,
it will strike down the strong to-morrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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